Car seats are designed to be coupled to the seat of an automotive vehicle and are shaped to securely receive a child or infant thereon. A car seat typically includes a seat body having a seat back and a seat pan. A pair of harnesses extend from the seat back, over the shoulders of the occupant, and are releasably coupled to a buckle connected to the seat pan to securely retain the occupant in the car seat.
Each shoulder harness has an effective length which can be defined as the length of the harness extending from the buckle or seat pan to the seat back of the car seat. In many existing car seats, the effective length of the harnesses cannot be easily adjusted, which requires an occupant to squeeze into or out of the harness when entering or exiting the car seat. Alternately, the effective length of conventional shoulder harness systems can be adjusted by releasing the overall tension in the harness system. However, this method for increasing the effective length of the harnesses has several drawbacks. Firstly, the tension release mechanism may be awkward to access and operate. Secondly, once the tension of the harnesses is released, the tension must then be reset or re-established when an occupant is again placed into the car seat, and it can be difficult and time consuming to set the harness to the precise desired tension.
Accordingly, there is a need for a car seat having shoulder harnesses that can be adjusted to allow easy insertion and removal of the occupant without requiring resetting of the tension of the harness.
The present invention is a car seat having an adjustable harness, wherein the effective size of the harness can be easily adjusted without requiring adjustment of the tension of the harness. In one embodiment, the invention is a car seat for an infant or child including a seat body having a seat back and a seat pan for receiving an occupant thereon and at least one shoulder harness coupled to the seat body and being shaped and located to fit over the occupant and retain the occupant on the seat body. The car seat further includes a bracket coupled to the at least one shoulder harness. The at least one shoulder harness includes a sliding portion extending from a lower portion of the seat body to an upper portion of the seat body and being slidingly received through the bracket, and a bracket portion extending from the upper portion of the seat body to the bracket and being coupled to the bracket.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following description and the accompanying drawings.